Yifei Xu, a PhD student in our group, successfully defended her dissertation today! In our group, Yifei developed several differential sensing applications, centering on the detection and discrimination of anions in water media (e.g. biological carboxylates, beta-lactam antibiotics). Yifei was also the first in our group to move her sensor systems to low-cost disposable solid supports, to improve their performance and application-friendliness. Yifei is now off to a position as a Senior QA Chemist at a drug manufacturing company in her native China. Congratulations Dr. Xu!

Yifei Xu, a fifth-year graduate student in our group, published a method for discrimination and quantitation of carboxylates in water at pH 7.4. Separation is carried out by a fluorescent sensor assembled from a dendritic polymer (PAMAM G5) and organic fluorescent dyes (Sensors 2021, 21, 3637); linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to differentiate 10 similar carboxylates with a LOD around 100 μM, with excellent structural identification and good concentration sensitivity, an uncommon feat for a pattern-based sensing system. This work was also featured in a press release by the Alabama Water Institute. Congratulations Yifei!​

Yichun Yuan, a first-year student in our group, held her first meeting with her graduate dissertation committee this morning. Yichun presented her work on functionalization of PAMAM dendrimers with boronic acids with different substitution patterns, and her plans for her future work in our group. Congratulations, Yichun!